Eartha Kitt's kindness remembered

Published 1:00 am, Tuesday, December 30, 2008

To Patricia and Ted Hammer, Eartha Kitt was far more than the sex-kitten actress and singer the world knew.

Instead she was
Eartha Mae
, a Southern plantation-born employer and friend who loved to garden and searched their refrigerator for homemade snacks.

On Christmas Day, the 81-year-old performer who rose to fame in the 1960s as the purring Catwoman in the "Batman" television series, died of colorectal cancer.

The Eartha Kitt "dearest to our hearts,"
Patricia Hammer
recalled, was down-to-earth and generous beyond anything one might suspect from her lusty performances.

In 1986 she moved into a converted 1773 barn on a secluded 80-acre property on North Road in New Milford. She lived there until about 2002, when she moved to Weston to be nearer her daughter,
Kitt Shapiro
, and two grandchildren.

In the Hammer living room remains an item the couple treasure, a needlepoint-covered chair with a metal plate on the back that reads "Handmade with love by Eartha Kitt."

Her love and gracious giving will live on in their memories, Mrs. Hammer said.

"The Eartha we knew and loved was very comfortable with us. She would come in and open the refrigerator door, saying, 'You always have something good to eat.' She would come to our wreath-making parties and be so proud to make one with her own hands. And she always spent Easter with us."

When Ted Hammer, who did landscaping work for Ms. Kitt, was burned on more than 40 percent of his body in a chainsaw explosion elsewhere, Ms. Kitt arranged a 1986 benefit performance for him at the Merryall Center for the Arts.

Patricia Hammer said she spoke to Ms. Kitt just a couple of months ago.

Merryall resident and conservationist
Mary Jane Peterson
said tears fell when she heard of Ms. Kitt's passing last Friday morning.

"She was a dear friend," Mrs. Peterson said of the woman who invited her to Thanksgiving dinner as solace after Mrs.
Peterson's
father died in 1991. "I can hear that voice ringing in my ears right now."

On stage, Ms. Kitt projected a glamorous and sexy image, yet in reality she was "so down to earth, with a very strong set of values and a desire to give back to the community," Mrs. Peterson said.

In Ms. Kitt's obitutary in The
New York Times
, Mrs. Peterson said, she read a quote that rang true: Ms. Kitt reportedly said she "trusted dirt" more than diamonds or gold.

"She was connected to the soil in a very elemental way," Mrs. Peterson recalled. "She was so supportive and instrumental in all of our conservation efforts in the community.''

"She was one of a kind," said
Ruth Henderson
, whose late husband, New York Pops conductor
Skitch Henderson
, worked with Ms. Kitt. "You could never compare her with anybody."